New and Upcoming Book Releases in September 2018

A new month!

Which also means, new books! *runs around excitedly*

September is just all around an exciting month for me. Well, I mean, I get excited every month, since there are new books coming out every month. But I think I am particularly excited for September because summer is ending!

*cue me shaking pompoms happily in the air*

Your girl has never really liked summer, or the heat, or the humidity. I have always enjoyed cool/cold weather more than hot weather. Now with autumn around the corner, I could not be more thrilled! It means I girl can now wear all the oversized hoodies and sweatshirts to my heart’s desire!

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. Today, I will be listing down the books that are to be released in the month of September. There are so many books that I have been waiting that are coming out in September. Another reason why I am as enthusiastic as I currently am. *laughs*

So without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Sadie

Genre :Young Adult, Mystery, Contemporary

Publish Date :September 4, 2018

BLURB :

Sadie hasn’t had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she’s been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water.

But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie’s entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice and hits the road following a few meagre clues to find him.

When West McCray—a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America—overhears Sadie’s story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie’s journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it’s too late.

”Excerpt”

EPISODE 1

[THE GIRLS THEME]

WEST MCCRAY:

Welcome to Cold Creek, Colorado. Population: eight hundred.

Do a Google Image search and you’ll see its main street, the barely beating heart of that tiny world, and find every other building vacant or boarded up. Cold Creek’s luckiest—the gainfully employed—work at the local grocery store, the gas station and a few other staple businesses along the strip. The rest have to look a town or two over for opportunity for themselves and for their children; the closest schools are in Parkdale, forty minutes away. They take in students from three other towns.

Beyond its main street, Cold Creek arteries out into worn and chipped Monopoly houses that no longer have a place upon the board. From there lies a rural sort of wilderness. The highway out is interrupted by veins of dirt roads leading to nowhere as often as they lead to pockets of dilapidated houses or trailer parks in even worse shape. In the summertime, a food bus comes with free lunches for the kids until school resumes, where they are guaranteed at least two subsidized meals a day.

There’s a quiet to it that’s startling if you’ve lived your whole life in the city, like I have. Cold Creek is surrounded by a beautiful, uninterrupted expanse of land and sky that seem to go on forever. Its sunsets are spectacular: electric golds and oranges, pinks and purples, natural beauty unspoiled by the insult of skyscrapers. The sheer amount of space is humbling, almost divine. It’s hard to imagine feeling trapped here.

But most people here do.

COLD CREEK RESIDENT[FEMALE]:

You live in Cold Creek because you were born here, and if you’re born here, you’re probably never getting out.

WEST MCCRAY:

That’s not entirely true. There have been some success stories, college graduates who moved on and found well-paying jobs in distant cities, but they tend to be the exception and not the rule. Cold Creek is home to a quality of life we’re raised to aspire beyond, if we’re born privileged enough to have the choice.

Here, everyone’s working so hard to care for their families and keep their heads above water that, if they wasted time on the petty dramas, scandals and personal grudges that seem to define small towns in our nation’s imagination, they would not survive. That’s not to say there’s no drama, scandal or grudge—just that those things are usually more than residents of Cold Creek can afford to care about.

Until it happened.

The husk of an abandoned, turn-of-the-century one-room schoolhouse sits three miles outside of town, taken by fire. The roof is caved in and what’s left of the walls are charred. It sits next to an apple orchard that’s slowly being reclaimed by the nature that surrounds it: young overgrowth, new trees, wildflowers.

There’s almost something romantic about it, something that feels like respite from the rest of the world. It’s the perfect place to be alone with your thoughts. At least it was, before.

May Beth Foster—who you’ll come to know as this series goes on—took me there herself. I asked to see it. She’s a plump, white, sixty-eight-year-old woman with salt-and-pepper hair. She has a grandmotherly way about her, right down to a voice that’s so invitingly familiar it warms you from the inside out. May Beth is manager of Sparkling River Estates trailer park, a lifelong resident of Cold Creek, and when she talks, people listen. More often than not, they accept whatever she says as the truth.

MAY BETH FOSTER:

Just about … here.

This is where they found the body.

911 DISPATCHER[PHONE]:

911 dispatch. What’s your emergency?

WEST MCCRAY:

On October third, forty-seven-year-old Carl Earl was on his way to work, a factory in Cofield. It’s an hour’s drive from Cold Creek. He’d barely begun his commute when he noticed black smoke marring the early morning horizon.

CARL EARL:

Started out like any other day. Least, I think it did. I imagine I got up, had breakfast and kissed my wife on my way out the door because that’s what I do every morning. But I honestly can’t remember a thing before I saw the smoke and everything that happened after that … well.

I wish I could forget it.

CARL EARL[PHONE]:

Yeah, my name’s Carl Earl and I just want to report a fire. There’s an abandoned schoolhouse off Milner’s Road and it’s all lit up. It’s about three miles east of Cold Creek. I was just driving by and I noticed it. I pulled over to call. It’s lookin’ pretty bad.

911 DISPATCHER[PHONE]:

Okay, Carl, we’re going to send someone out.

Are there any other people around? Anyone in need of assistance you can see?

CARL EARL[PHONE]:

Just me out here, far as I can tell, but I might not be close enough … I could maybe get a little closer and see—

911 DISPATCHER[PHONE]:

Sir—Carl—please stay clear of the fire. I need you to do that for me, all right?

CARL EARL[PHONE]:

Oh, yeah, no—I wasn’t going to—

CARL EARL:

So I did as I was told, even though a part of me wanted to play hero. I’m still not sure what compelled me to stick around because I couldn’t afford to miss the work, but I stayed ’til the cops and the firemen came. I watched ’em go at it until the flames were under control and that’s when I noticed … just beyond the schoolhouse there, I saw—I was the, uh—I was the one that saw her first.

WEST MCCRAY:

The body of Mattie Southern was discovered between the burning schoolhouse and the apple orchard, just out of sight. She’d been reported missing three days earlier and here she was, found.

Dead.

I’ve decided the gruesome details of what was uncovered in that orchard will not be a part of this show. While the murder, the crime, might have captured your initial interest, its violence and brutality do not exist for your entertainment—so please don’t ask us. The details of this case are easy enough to find online. In my opinion, you only really need to know two things.

The first is the cause of her death was blunt force trauma to the head.

The second is this:

MAY BETH FOSTER:

She was only thirteen years old.

CARL EARL:

I don’t sleep great anymore, since it happened.

WEST MCCRAY:

Mattie left behind a nineteen-year-old sister, Sadie; a surrogate grandmother, May Beth; and her mother, Claire; but Claire’s been out of the picture for a while.

I first heard about the Southern murder at a gas station outside Abernathy, about thirty minutes from Cold Creek. I was with my crew in the eastern plains and we’d just wrapped interviews for a segment of an episode of Always Out There dedicated to profiling small towns in America. You know, the kind on a rambling decline. We wanted their residents to tell us what those places lost, not because we thought we could restore them to their former glory but simply so you knew they existed. We wanted to give them a voice before they disappeared.

JOE HALLORAN:

It’s a nice thought, anyway. That somebody gives a damn.

WEST MCCRAY:

That was Joe Halloran, one of the Abernathy residents we interviewed. I wasn’t thinking about his words when I was standing behind the guy ahead of me at the gas station, listening as he told the clerk exactly what happened to the Southern kid. The grisly facts didn’t inspire me to stick around. My crew and I had gotten what we came for and we were ready to go back home. It was a terrible thing, sure, but we live in a world that has no shortage of terrible things. You can’t stop for all of them.

A year later, I was sitting in my office in New York. It was October, a year to the day Mattie died, actually, the third—and my attention kept wandering from my computer screen to the window, where I could see the Empire State Building. I liked my job at WNRK, and I liked my life in the city, but maybe some part of me—the same part that let me walk away from Mattie’s story the first time without a second thought—was overdue for a shake-up.

It arrived in the form of a phone call.

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

Is this West McCray?

WEST MCCRAY[PHONE]:

It is. How can I help you?

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

This is May Beth Foster. Joe Halloran told me you give a damn.

WEST MCCRAY:

There’d been no new developments in the Mattie Southern case, no suspects named to the crime. The investigation seemed to have ground to a halt. But that wasn’t the reason May Beth contacted me.

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

I need your help.

WEST MCCRAY:

Three months ago, in mid-July, she’d gotten a call from a police station in Farfield, Colorado, a town many, many miles from Cold Creek. They’d found a 2007 black Chevy parked on the side of the road and inside of it, a green bag full of personal effects belonging to Mattie’s older sister, Sadie Hunter, who had disappeared that June. Sadie herself was nowhere to be found. She still hasn’t been found. After a cursory investigation, Sadie was declared a runaway by local law enforcement, and, having exhausted all possible avenues available to her, May Beth Foster reached out to me. I was her last hope. She thought maybe I could bring Sadie back home to her alive. Because Sadie had to be alive, because—

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

I can’t take another dead girl.

EPISODE 1

[THE GIRLS THEME]

WEST MCCRAY:

Welcome to Cold Creek, Colorado. Population: eight hundred.

Do a Google Image search and you’ll see its main street, the barely beating heart of that tiny world, and find every other building vacant or boarded up. Cold Creek’s luckiest—the gainfully employed—work at the local grocery store, the gas station and a few other staple businesses along the strip. The rest have to look a town or two over for opportunity for themselves and for their children; the closest schools are in Parkdale, forty minutes away. They take in students from three other towns.

Beyond its main street, Cold Creek arteries out into worn and chipped Monopoly houses that no longer have a place upon the board. From there lies a rural sort of wilderness. The highway out is interrupted by veins of dirt roads leading to nowhere as often as they lead to pockets of dilapidated houses or trailer parks in even worse shape. In the summertime, a food bus comes with free lunches for the kids until school resumes, where they are guaranteed at least two subsidized meals a day.

There’s a quiet to it that’s startling if you’ve lived your whole life in the city, like I have. Cold Creek is surrounded by a beautiful, uninterrupted expanse of land and sky that seem to go on forever. Its sunsets are spectacular: electric golds and oranges, pinks and purples, natural beauty unspoiled by the insult of skyscrapers. The sheer amount of space is humbling, almost divine. It’s hard to imagine feeling trapped here.

But most people here do.

COLD CREEK RESIDENT[FEMALE]:

You live in Cold Creek because you were born here, and if you’re born here, you’re probably never getting out.

WEST MCCRAY:

That’s not entirely true. There have been some success stories, college graduates who moved on and found well-paying jobs in distant cities, but they tend to be the exception and not the rule. Cold Creek is home to a quality of life we’re raised to aspire beyond, if we’re born privileged enough to have the choice.

Here, everyone’s working so hard to care for their families and keep their heads above water that, if they wasted time on the petty dramas, scandals and personal grudges that seem to define small towns in our nation’s imagination, they would not survive. That’s not to say there’s no drama, scandal or grudge—just that those things are usually more than residents of Cold Creek can afford to care about.

Until it happened.

The husk of an abandoned, turn-of-the-century one-room schoolhouse sits three miles outside of town, taken by fire. The roof is caved in and what’s left of the walls are charred. It sits next to an apple orchard that’s slowly being reclaimed by the nature that surrounds it: young overgrowth, new trees, wildflowers.

There’s almost something romantic about it, something that feels like respite from the rest of the world. It’s the perfect place to be alone with your thoughts. At least it was, before.

May Beth Foster—who you’ll come to know as this series goes on—took me there herself. I asked to see it. She’s a plump, white, sixty-eight-year-old woman with salt-and-pepper hair. She has a grandmotherly way about her, right down to a voice that’s so invitingly familiar it warms you from the inside out. May Beth is manager of Sparkling River Estates trailer park, a lifelong resident of Cold Creek, and when she talks, people listen. More often than not, they accept whatever she says as the truth.

MAY BETH FOSTER:

Just about … here.

This is where they found the body.

911 DISPATCHER[PHONE]:

911 dispatch. What’s your emergency?

WEST MCCRAY:

On October third, forty-seven-year-old Carl Earl was on his way to work, a factory in Cofield. It’s an hour’s drive from Cold Creek. He’d barely begun his commute when he noticed black smoke marring the early morning horizon.

CARL EARL:

Started out like any other day. Least, I think it did. I imagine I got up, had breakfast and kissed my wife on my way out the door because that’s what I do every morning. But I honestly can’t remember a thing before I saw the smoke and everything that happened after that … well.

I wish I could forget it.

CARL EARL[PHONE]:

Yeah, my name’s Carl Earl and I just want to report a fire. There’s an abandoned schoolhouse off Milner’s Road and it’s all lit up. It’s about three miles east of Cold Creek. I was just driving by and I noticed it. I pulled over to call. It’s lookin’ pretty bad.

911 DISPATCHER[PHONE]:

Okay, Carl, we’re going to send someone out.

Are there any other people around? Anyone in need of assistance you can see?

CARL EARL[PHONE]:

Just me out here, far as I can tell, but I might not be close enough … I could maybe get a little closer and see—

911 DISPATCHER[PHONE]:

Sir—Carl—please stay clear of the fire. I need you to do that for me, all right?

CARL EARL[PHONE]:

Oh, yeah, no—I wasn’t going to—

CARL EARL:

So I did as I was told, even though a part of me wanted to play hero. I’m still not sure what compelled me to stick around because I couldn’t afford to miss the work, but I stayed ’til the cops and the firemen came. I watched ’em go at it until the flames were under control and that’s when I noticed … just beyond the schoolhouse there, I saw—I was the, uh—I was the one that saw her first.

WEST MCCRAY:

The body of Mattie Southern was discovered between the burning schoolhouse and the apple orchard, just out of sight. She’d been reported missing three days earlier and here she was, found.

Dead.

I’ve decided the gruesome details of what was uncovered in that orchard will not be a part of this show. While the murder, the crime, might have captured your initial interest, its violence and brutality do not exist for your entertainment—so please don’t ask us. The details of this case are easy enough to find online. In my opinion, you only really need to know two things.

The first is the cause of her death was blunt force trauma to the head.

The second is this:

MAY BETH FOSTER:

She was only thirteen years old.

CARL EARL:

I don’t sleep great anymore, since it happened.

WEST MCCRAY:

Mattie left behind a nineteen-year-old sister, Sadie; a surrogate grandmother, May Beth; and her mother, Claire; but Claire’s been out of the picture for a while.

I first heard about the Southern murder at a gas station outside Abernathy, about thirty minutes from Cold Creek. I was with my crew in the eastern plains and we’d just wrapped interviews for a segment of an episode of Always Out There dedicated to profiling small towns in America. You know, the kind on a rambling decline. We wanted their residents to tell us what those places lost, not because we thought we could restore them to their former glory but simply so you knew they existed. We wanted to give them a voice before they disappeared.

JOE HALLORAN:

It’s a nice thought, anyway. That somebody gives a damn.

WEST MCCRAY:

That was Joe Halloran, one of the Abernathy residents we interviewed. I wasn’t thinking about his words when I was standing behind the guy ahead of me at the gas station, listening as he told the clerk exactly what happened to the Southern kid. The grisly facts didn’t inspire me to stick around. My crew and I had gotten what we came for and we were ready to go back home. It was a terrible thing, sure, but we live in a world that has no shortage of terrible things. You can’t stop for all of them.

A year later, I was sitting in my office in New York. It was October, a year to the day Mattie died, actually, the third—and my attention kept wandering from my computer screen to the window, where I could see the Empire State Building. I liked my job at WNRK, and I liked my life in the city, but maybe some part of me—the same part that let me walk away from Mattie’s story the first time without a second thought—was overdue for a shake-up.

It arrived in the form of a phone call.

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

Is this West McCray?

WEST MCCRAY[PHONE]:

It is. How can I help you?

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

This is May Beth Foster. Joe Halloran told me you give a damn.

WEST MCCRAY:

There’d been no new developments in the Mattie Southern case, no suspects named to the crime. The investigation seemed to have ground to a halt. But that wasn’t the reason May Beth contacted me.

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

I need your help.

WEST MCCRAY:

Three months ago, in mid-July, she’d gotten a call from a police station in Farfield, Colorado, a town many, many miles from Cold Creek. They’d found a 2007 black Chevy parked on the side of the road and inside of it, a green bag full of personal effects belonging to Mattie’s older sister, Sadie Hunter, who had disappeared that June. Sadie herself was nowhere to be found. She still hasn’t been found. After a cursory investigation, Sadie was declared a runaway by local law enforcement, and, having exhausted all possible avenues available to her, May Beth Foster reached out to me. I was her last hope. She thought maybe I could bring Sadie back home to her alive. Because Sadie had to be alive, because—

MAY BETH FOSTER[PHONE]:

I can’t take another dead girl.

2. Nine Perfect Strangers

Genre :Contemporary, Adult Fiction, Mystery

Publish Date :September 18, 2018

BLURB :

Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever? In Liane Moriarty’s latest page-turner, nine perfect strangers are about to find out…

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

Frances Welty, the formerly best-selling romantic novelist, arrives at Tranquillum House nursing a bad back, a broken heart, and an exquisitely painful paper cut. She’s immediately intrigued by her fellow guests. Most of them don’t look to be in need of a health resort at all. But the person that intrigues her most is the strange and charismatic owner/director of Tranquillum House. Could this person really have the answers Frances didn’t even know she was seeking? Should Frances put aside her doubts and immerse herself in everything Tranquillum House has to offer – or should she run while she still can?

It’s not long before every guest at Tranquillum House is asking exactly the same question.

3. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Genre :Contemporary, Young Adult, Fiction

Publish Date :September 25, 2018

BLURB :

The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship–like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor–April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world–everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires–and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.

Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

4. Summer Bird Blue

Genre :Contemporary, Young Adult, LGBT

Publish Date :September 11, 2018

BLURB :

Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.

Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.

5. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Genre :Thriller, Mystery, Fiction

Publish Date :September 18, 2018

BLURB :

How do you stop a murder that’s already happened?

At a gala party thrown by her parents, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed—again. She’s been murdered hundreds of times, and each day, Aiden Bishop is too late to save her. Doomed to repeat the same day over and over, Aiden’s only escape is to solve Evelyn Hardcastle’s murder and conquer the shadows of an enemy he struggles to even comprehend—but nothing and no one is quite what they seem.

”Excerpt”

I forget everything between footsteps.

“Anna!” I finish shouting, snapping my mouth shut in surprise.

My mind has gone blank. I don’t know who Anna is or why I’m calling her name. I don’t even know how I got here. I’m stood in a forest, shielding my eyes from the spitting rain. My heart’s thumping, I reek of sweat and my legs are shaking. I must have been running but I can’t remember why.

“How did—” I’m cut short by the sight of my own hands. They’re bony, ugly. A stranger’s hands. I don’t recognize them at all.

Feeling the first touch of panic, I try to recall something else about myself: a family member, my address, age…anything, but nothing’s coming. I don’t even have a name. Every memory I had a few seconds ago is gone.

“I can’t breathe,” I gasp, blood roaring in my ears as I sink to the ground, my fingers digging into the dirt.

You can breathe; you just need to calm down.

There’s comfort in this inner voice, cold authority.

Close your eyes. Listen to the forest. Collect yourself.

Obeying the voice, I squeeze my eyes shut, but all I can hear is my own panicked wheezing. For the longest time it crushes every other sound, but slowly, ever so slowly, I work a hole in my fear, allowing other noises to break through. Raindrops are tapping the leaves, branches rustling overhead.

There’s a stream away to my right and crows in the trees, their wings crack- ing the air as they take flight. Something’s scurrying in the undergrowth, the thump of rabbit feet passing near enough to touch. One by one, I knit these new memories together until I’ve got five minutes of past to wrap myself in. It’s enough to stanch the panic, at least for now.

I get to my feet clumsily, surprised by how tall I am, how far from the ground I seem to be. Swaying a little, I wipe the wet leaves from my trousers, noticing for the first time that I’m wearing a dinner jacket, the shirt splattered with mud and red wine. I must have been at a party. My pockets are empty and I don’t have a coat, so I can’t have strayed too far. That’s reassuring.

Judging by the light, it’s morning, so I’ve probably been out here all night. No one gets dressed up to spend an evening alone, which means somebody must know I’m missing by now. Surely, beyond these trees, a house is coming awake in alarm, search parties striking out to find me? My eyes roam the trees, half-expecting to see my friends emerging through the foliage, pats on the back and gentle jokes escorting me back home, but daydreams won’t deliver me from this forest, and I can’t linger here hoping for rescue. My body’s shaking, my teeth chattering. I need to start walking, if only to keep warm, but I can’t see anything except trees. There’s no way to know whether I’m moving toward help or blundering away from it.

At a loss, I return to the last concern of the man I was.“Anna!”Whoever this woman is, she’s clearly the reason I’m out here, but I can’t

picture her. Perhaps she’s my wife, or my daughter? Neither feels right, and yet there’s a pull in the name. I can feel it trying to lead my mind somewhere.

“Anna!” I shout, more out of desperation than hope.“Help me!” a woman screams back.I spin, seeking the voice, dizzying myself, glimpsing her between distant

trees, a woman in a black dress running for her life. Seconds later, I spot her pursuer crashing through the foliage after her.

“You there, stop!” I yell, but my voice is weak and weary; they trample it underfoot.

Shock pins me in place, and the two of them are almost out of sight by the time I give chase, flying after them with a haste I’d never have thought possible from my aching body. Even so, no matter how hard I run, they’re always a little ahead.

Sweat pours off my brow, my already weak legs shaking until they give out, sending me sprawling into the dirt. Scrambling through the leaves, I heave myself up in time to meet her scream. It floods the forest, sharp with fear, and is cut silent by a gunshot.

“Anna!” I call out desperately. “Anna!”There’s no response, just the fading echo of the pistol’s report.“Thirty seconds,” I mutter. That’s how long I hesitated when I first

spotted her, and that’s how far away I was when she was murdered. Thirty seconds of indecision…thirty seconds to abandon somebody completely.

There’s a thick branch by my feet, and picking it up, I swing it experi- mentally, comforted by the weight and rough texture of the bark. It won’t do me very much good against a pistol, but it’s better than investigating these woods with my hands in the air. I’m still panting, still trembling after the run, but guilt nudges me in the direction of Anna’s scream. Wary of making too much noise, I brush aside the low-hanging branches, searching for something I don’t really want to see.

The cracking of twigs moves closer, shallow breaths only a little behind me. My legs falter, the branch dropping from my hands. I would pray, but I don’t remember the words. Warm breath touches my neck. I smell alcohol and cigarettes, the odor of an unwashed body.

“East,” a man rasps, dropping something heavy into my pocket.

The presence recedes, his steps retreating into the woods as I sag, pressing my forehead to the dirt, inhaling the smell of wet leaves and rot, tears running down my cheeks.

My relief is pitiable, my cowardice lamentable. I couldn’t even look my tormentor in the eye. What kind of man am I?

It’s some minutes before my fear thaws sufficiently for me to move, and even then, I’m forced to lean against a nearby tree to rest. The murderer’s gift jiggles in my pocket, and dreading what I might find, I plunge my hand inside, withdrawing a silver compass.

“Oh!” I say, surprised.

The glass is cracked and the metal scuffed, the initials SB engraved on the underside. I don’t understand what they mean, but the killer’s instruc- tions were clear. I’m to use the compass to head east.

I glance at the forest guiltily. Anna’s body must be near, but I’m terrified of the killer’s reaction should I arrive upon it. Perhaps that’s why I’m alive, because I didn’t come any closer. Do I really want to test the limits of his mercy?

Assuming that’s what this is.

For the longest time, I stare at the compass’s quivering needle. There’s not much I’m certain of anymore, but I know murderers don’t show mercy. Whatever game he’s playing, I can’t trust his advice and I shouldn’t follow it, but if I don’t… I search the forest again. Every direction looks the same: trees without end beneath a sky filled with spite.

How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home?

I forget everything between footsteps.

“Anna!” I finish shouting, snapping my mouth shut in surprise.

My mind has gone blank. I don’t know who Anna is or why I’m calling her name. I don’t even know how I got here. I’m stood in a forest, shielding my eyes from the spitting rain. My heart’s thumping, I reek of sweat and my legs are shaking. I must have been running but I can’t remember why.

“How did—” I’m cut short by the sight of my own hands. They’re bony, ugly. A stranger’s hands. I don’t recognize them at all.

Feeling the first touch of panic, I try to recall something else about myself: a family member, my address, age…anything, but nothing’s coming. I don’t even have a name. Every memory I had a few seconds ago is gone.

“I can’t breathe,” I gasp, blood roaring in my ears as I sink to the ground, my fingers digging into the dirt.

You can breathe; you just need to calm down.

There’s comfort in this inner voice, cold authority.

Close your eyes. Listen to the forest. Collect yourself.

Obeying the voice, I squeeze my eyes shut, but all I can hear is my own panicked wheezing. For the longest time it crushes every other sound, but slowly, ever so slowly, I work a hole in my fear, allowing other noises to break through. Raindrops are tapping the leaves, branches rustling overhead.

There’s a stream away to my right and crows in the trees, their wings crack- ing the air as they take flight. Something’s scurrying in the undergrowth, the thump of rabbit feet passing near enough to touch. One by one, I knit these new memories together until I’ve got five minutes of past to wrap myself in. It’s enough to stanch the panic, at least for now.

I get to my feet clumsily, surprised by how tall I am, how far from the ground I seem to be. Swaying a little, I wipe the wet leaves from my trousers, noticing for the first time that I’m wearing a dinner jacket, the shirt splattered with mud and red wine. I must have been at a party. My pockets are empty and I don’t have a coat, so I can’t have strayed too far. That’s reassuring.

Judging by the light, it’s morning, so I’ve probably been out here all night. No one gets dressed up to spend an evening alone, which means somebody must know I’m missing by now. Surely, beyond these trees, a house is coming awake in alarm, search parties striking out to find me? My eyes roam the trees, half-expecting to see my friends emerging through the foliage, pats on the back and gentle jokes escorting me back home, but daydreams won’t deliver me from this forest, and I can’t linger here hoping for rescue. My body’s shaking, my teeth chattering. I need to start walking, if only to keep warm, but I can’t see anything except trees. There’s no way to know whether I’m moving toward help or blundering away from it.

At a loss, I return to the last concern of the man I was.“Anna!”Whoever this woman is, she’s clearly the reason I’m out here, but I can’t

picture her. Perhaps she’s my wife, or my daughter? Neither feels right, and yet there’s a pull in the name. I can feel it trying to lead my mind somewhere.

“Anna!” I shout, more out of desperation than hope.“Help me!” a woman screams back.I spin, seeking the voice, dizzying myself, glimpsing her between distant

trees, a woman in a black dress running for her life. Seconds later, I spot her pursuer crashing through the foliage after her.

“You there, stop!” I yell, but my voice is weak and weary; they trample it underfoot.

Shock pins me in place, and the two of them are almost out of sight by the time I give chase, flying after them with a haste I’d never have thought possible from my aching body. Even so, no matter how hard I run, they’re always a little ahead.

Sweat pours off my brow, my already weak legs shaking until they give out, sending me sprawling into the dirt. Scrambling through the leaves, I heave myself up in time to meet her scream. It floods the forest, sharp with fear, and is cut silent by a gunshot.

“Anna!” I call out desperately. “Anna!”There’s no response, just the fading echo of the pistol’s report.“Thirty seconds,” I mutter. That’s how long I hesitated when I first

spotted her, and that’s how far away I was when she was murdered. Thirty seconds of indecision…thirty seconds to abandon somebody completely.

There’s a thick branch by my feet, and picking it up, I swing it experi- mentally, comforted by the weight and rough texture of the bark. It won’t do me very much good against a pistol, but it’s better than investigating these woods with my hands in the air. I’m still panting, still trembling after the run, but guilt nudges me in the direction of Anna’s scream. Wary of making too much noise, I brush aside the low-hanging branches, searching for something I don’t really want to see.

The cracking of twigs moves closer, shallow breaths only a little behind me. My legs falter, the branch dropping from my hands. I would pray, but I don’t remember the words. Warm breath touches my neck. I smell alcohol and cigarettes, the odor of an unwashed body.

“East,” a man rasps, dropping something heavy into my pocket.

The presence recedes, his steps retreating into the woods as I sag, pressing my forehead to the dirt, inhaling the smell of wet leaves and rot, tears running down my cheeks.

My relief is pitiable, my cowardice lamentable. I couldn’t even look my tormentor in the eye. What kind of man am I?

It’s some minutes before my fear thaws sufficiently for me to move, and even then, I’m forced to lean against a nearby tree to rest. The murderer’s gift jiggles in my pocket, and dreading what I might find, I plunge my hand inside, withdrawing a silver compass.

“Oh!” I say, surprised.

The glass is cracked and the metal scuffed, the initials SB engraved on the underside. I don’t understand what they mean, but the killer’s instruc- tions were clear. I’m to use the compass to head east.

I glance at the forest guiltily. Anna’s body must be near, but I’m terrified of the killer’s reaction should I arrive upon it. Perhaps that’s why I’m alive, because I didn’t come any closer. Do I really want to test the limits of his mercy?

Assuming that’s what this is.

For the longest time, I stare at the compass’s quivering needle. There’s not much I’m certain of anymore, but I know murderers don’t show mercy. Whatever game he’s playing, I can’t trust his advice and I shouldn’t follow it, but if I don’t… I search the forest again. Every direction looks the same: trees without end beneath a sky filled with spite.

How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home?

6. The Silence of The Girls

Genre :Historical Fiction, Retelling, Fantasty, Mythology

Publish Date :September 18, 2018

BLURB :

From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a monumental new masterpiece, set in the midst of literature’s most famous war. Pat Barker turns her attention to the timeless legend of The Iliad , as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War.

The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman–Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war’s outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy’s neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece’s greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles’s concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army.

When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis’s people, but also of the ancient world at large.

Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war–the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead–all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis’s perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker’s latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives–and it is nothing short of magnificent.

”Excerpt”

Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles . . . How the epithets pile up. We never called him any of those things; we called him “the butcher.”

Swift-­footed Achilles. Now there’s an interesting one. More than anything else, more than brilliance, more than greatness, his speed defined him. There’s a story that he once chased the god Apollo all over the plains of Troy. Cornered at last, Apollo is supposed to have said: “You can’t kill me, I’m immortal.” “Ah, yes,” Achilles replied. “But we both know if you weren’t immortal, you’d be dead.”

Nobody was ever allowed the last word; not even a god.

——————

I heard him before I saw him: his battle cry ringing round the walls of Lyrnessus.

We women—​children too, of course—​had been told to go to the citadel, taking a change of clothes and as much food and drink as we could carry. Like all respectable married women, I rarely left my house—​though admittedly in my case the house was a palace—​so to be walking down the street in broad daylight felt like a holiday. Almost. Under the laughter and cheering and shouted jokes, I think we were all afraid. I know I was. We all knew the men were being pushed back—​the fighting that had once been on the beach and around the harbour was now directly under the gates. We could hear shouts, cries, the clash of swords on shields—​and we knew what awaited us if the city fell. And yet the danger didn’t feel real—​not to me at any rate, and I doubt if the others were any closer to grasping it. How was it possible for these high walls that had protected us all our lives to fall?

Down all the narrow lanes of the city, small groups of women carrying babies or holding children by the hand were converging on the main square. Fierce sunlight, a scouring wind and the citadel’s black shadow reaching out to take us in. Blinded for a moment, I stumbled, moving from bright light into the dark. The common women and slaves were herded together into the basement while members of royal and aristocratic families occupied the top floor. All the way up the twisting staircase we went, barely able to get a foothold on the narrow steps, round and round and round until at last we came out, abruptly, into a big, bare room. Arrows of light from the slit windows lay at intervals across the floor, leaving the corners of the room in shadow. Slowly, we looked around, selecting places to sit and spread our belongings and start trying to create some semblance of a home.

At first, it felt cool but then, as the sun rose higher, it became hot and stuffy. Airless. Within a few hours, the smells of sweaty bodies, of milk, baby-­shit and menstrual blood, had become almost unbearable. Babies and toddlers grew fretful in the heat. Mothers laid the youngest children on sheets and fanned them while their older brothers and sisters ran around, overexcited, not really under­standing what was going on. A couple of boys—​ten or eleven years old, too young to fight—​occupied the top of the stairs and pretended to drive back the invaders. The women kept looking at each other, dry-­mouthed, not talking much, as outside the shouts and cries grew louder and a great hammering on the gates began. Again, and again, that battle cry rang out, as inhuman as the howling of a wolf. For once, women with sons envied those with daughters, because girls would be allowed to live. Boys, if anywhere near fighting age, were routinely slaughtered. Even pregnant women were sometimes killed, speared through the belly on the off chance their child would be a boy. I noticed Ismene, who was four months pregnant with my husband’s child, pressing her hands hard into her stomach, trying to convince herself the pregnancy didn’t show.

In the past few days, I’d often seen her looking at me—​Ismene, who’d once been so careful never to meet my eyes—​and her expression had said, more clearly than any words: It’s your turn now. Let’s see how you like it. It hurt, that brash, unblinking stare. I came from a family where slaves were treated kindly and when my father gave me in marriage to Mynes, the king, I carried on the tradition in my own home. I’d been kind to Ismene—​or I thought I had, but perhaps no kindness was possible between owner and slave, only varying degrees of brutality? I looked across the room at Ismene and thought: Yes, you’re right. My turn now.

Nobody was talking of defeat, though we all expected it. Oh, except for one old woman, my husband’s great-­aunt, who insisted this falling back to the gate was a mere tactical ploy. Mynes was just playing them along, she said, leading them blindfolded into a trap. We were going to win, chase the marauding Greeks into the sea—​and I think perhaps some of the younger women believed her. But then that war cry came again, and again, each time closer, and we all knew who it was, though nobody said his name.

The air was heavy with the foreknowledge of what we would have to face. Mothers put their arms round girls who were growing up fast but not yet ripe for marriage. Girls as young as nine and ten would not be spared. Ritsa leant across to me. “Well, at least we’re not virgins.” She was grinning as she said it, revealing gaps in her teeth caused by long years of childbearing—​and no living child to show for it. I nodded and forced a smile, but said nothing.

Great Achilles. Brilliant Achilles, shining Achilles, godlike Achilles . . . How the epithets pile up. We never called him any of those things; we called him “the butcher.”

Swift-­footed Achilles. Now there’s an interesting one. More than anything else, more than brilliance, more than greatness, his speed defined him. There’s a story that he once chased the god Apollo all over the plains of Troy. Cornered at last, Apollo is supposed to have said: “You can’t kill me, I’m immortal.” “Ah, yes,” Achilles replied. “But we both know if you weren’t immortal, you’d be dead.”

Nobody was ever allowed the last word; not even a god.

——————

I heard him before I saw him: his battle cry ringing round the walls of Lyrnessus.

We women—​children too, of course—​had been told to go to the citadel, taking a change of clothes and as much food and drink as we could carry. Like all respectable married women, I rarely left my house—​though admittedly in my case the house was a palace—​so to be walking down the street in broad daylight felt like a holiday. Almost. Under the laughter and cheering and shouted jokes, I think we were all afraid. I know I was. We all knew the men were being pushed back—​the fighting that had once been on the beach and around the harbour was now directly under the gates. We could hear shouts, cries, the clash of swords on shields—​and we knew what awaited us if the city fell. And yet the danger didn’t feel real—​not to me at any rate, and I doubt if the others were any closer to grasping it. How was it possible for these high walls that had protected us all our lives to fall?

Down all the narrow lanes of the city, small groups of women carrying babies or holding children by the hand were converging on the main square. Fierce sunlight, a scouring wind and the citadel’s black shadow reaching out to take us in. Blinded for a moment, I stumbled, moving from bright light into the dark. The common women and slaves were herded together into the basement while members of royal and aristocratic families occupied the top floor. All the way up the twisting staircase we went, barely able to get a foothold on the narrow steps, round and round and round until at last we came out, abruptly, into a big, bare room. Arrows of light from the slit windows lay at intervals across the floor, leaving the corners of the room in shadow. Slowly, we looked around, selecting places to sit and spread our belongings and start trying to create some semblance of a home.

At first, it felt cool but then, as the sun rose higher, it became hot and stuffy. Airless. Within a few hours, the smells of sweaty bodies, of milk, baby-­shit and menstrual blood, had become almost unbearable. Babies and toddlers grew fretful in the heat. Mothers laid the youngest children on sheets and fanned them while their older brothers and sisters ran around, overexcited, not really under­standing what was going on. A couple of boys—​ten or eleven years old, too young to fight—​occupied the top of the stairs and pretended to drive back the invaders. The women kept looking at each other, dry-­mouthed, not talking much, as outside the shouts and cries grew louder and a great hammering on the gates began. Again, and again, that battle cry rang out, as inhuman as the howling of a wolf. For once, women with sons envied those with daughters, because girls would be allowed to live. Boys, if anywhere near fighting age, were routinely slaughtered. Even pregnant women were sometimes killed, speared through the belly on the off chance their child would be a boy. I noticed Ismene, who was four months pregnant with my husband’s child, pressing her hands hard into her stomach, trying to convince herself the pregnancy didn’t show.

In the past few days, I’d often seen her looking at me—​Ismene, who’d once been so careful never to meet my eyes—​and her expression had said, more clearly than any words: It’s your turn now. Let’s see how you like it. It hurt, that brash, unblinking stare. I came from a family where slaves were treated kindly and when my father gave me in marriage to Mynes, the king, I carried on the tradition in my own home. I’d been kind to Ismene—​or I thought I had, but perhaps no kindness was possible between owner and slave, only varying degrees of brutality? I looked across the room at Ismene and thought: Yes, you’re right. My turn now.

Nobody was talking of defeat, though we all expected it. Oh, except for one old woman, my husband’s great-­aunt, who insisted this falling back to the gate was a mere tactical ploy. Mynes was just playing them along, she said, leading them blindfolded into a trap. We were going to win, chase the marauding Greeks into the sea—​and I think perhaps some of the younger women believed her. But then that war cry came again, and again, each time closer, and we all knew who it was, though nobody said his name.

The air was heavy with the foreknowledge of what we would have to face. Mothers put their arms round girls who were growing up fast but not yet ripe for marriage. Girls as young as nine and ten would not be spared. Ritsa leant across to me. “Well, at least we’re not virgins.” She was grinning as she said it, revealing gaps in her teeth caused by long years of childbearing—​and no living child to show for it. I nodded and forced a smile, but said nothing.

7. The Glue

Genre :Menage (MMF), Romance, Adult Fiction

Publish Date :September 5, 2018

BLURB :

I’m a fixer. A lover. Always searching for the right fit.And I come up empty every time.My desires are unusual.I don’t feel whole until I’m in the middle, holding it all together.Which makes having a romantic relationship really difficult.

Until them.Two people. An unraveling marriage. Love on the rocks.And they want me.To put them back together again.

Problem is, once they’re fixed, where does that leave me?I sure as hell hope I stick like glue.

8. Perversion (Perversion Trilogy #1)

Genre :Romance, Adult Fiction, Contemporary

Publish Date :September 25, 2018

BLURB :

Love is supposed to be a fairy tale.Ours is a death wish.

I’m the executioner for the Bedlam Brotherhood.She’s a con artist working for my greatest enemy.

I use her.She manipulates me.

We find ourselves on opposite sides of a bloody war.

My heart and head tell me I have to stay away.My lust for her doesn’t give a sh*t.

Nothings fair in love and gang war.

9. Runaway Girl

Genre :Romance, Adult Fiction, Contemporary

Publish Date :September 24, 2018

BLURB :

One moment. A chance meeting of gazes through the church window pane with someone familiar who radiates intrigue. Independence. It’s the final push Naomi needs to realize…she’s boring. A blonde, cookie cutter, well mannered trophy wife-to-be. How can she expect to lead a fulfilling married life when she’s never lived?

Special Forces diver Jason Bristow needs a beauty pageant coach. Not for himself—although the tattooed bruiser could definitely use some charm. For his little sister who he has returned to St. Augustine, Florida to raise. When a beautiful southern debutante lands on his doorstep, she awakens a hunger that won’t be ignored. If only she wasn’t planning on winning back the ex-fiancé she left at the altar…

Despite the potential for ruin, heat continues to build between Naomi and Jason beneath the sultry Florida sunshine, consuming them both. But they’re on borrowed time…and it’s about to run out.

10. The Bus on Thursday

Genre :Horror, Adult Fiction, Mystery, Humor

Publish Date :September 18, 2018

BLURB :

That’s when I literally had thoughts of becoming a nun, because I thought, Well, I’m never going to have sex again. If I become a nun, I would at least have somewhere to live.

It wasn’t just the bad break-up that caused Eleanor’s life to unravel. It was the cancer. And the demons that came with it.

Freshly single and thoroughly traumatised from the ordeals of breast cancer, Eleanor Mellett starts a new job as a teacher in a remote mountain hamlet. It’s certainly peaceful enough, almost too peaceful. But what’s become of the previous teacher, the saintly Miss Barker, who has disappeared abruptly under mysterious circumstances? And what’s with all those locks on the door? And what the hell is that bus doing idling outside her house late, late at night?

”Excerpt”

I was at work scratching my armpit. I was literally at my desk scratching my pit and I felt it and I freaked out and I didn’t tell a soul and normally I’m the kind of person to blurt out everything. So I guess I panicked from the word go.

I had the mammogram first. I had several mammograms because they couldn’t get to it—it was in a really awkward spot. Also, apparently I was not relaxed enough. My not being relaxed enough while they flattened my breast like a hamburger patty and blasted it with radiation was causing them problems. They kept hauling out interesting new attachments for the mammogram machine, like it was some kind of fancy-arse Mixmaster. They were asking me questions like “Are you on the pill? Have you missed any pills?” And I was on the pill, but I’d been really slack about it because I’d broken up with Josh and I wasn’t seeing anyone. But this woman kept insisting I be precise. “What do you mean, you missed a day? How many days did you actually miss? Could you be pregnant?” And she was sweating, there were literally beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead, so I knew.

They did a fine-needle biopsy next. They said, “Anesthetic or no anesthetic?” I said, “Give me the anesthetic, both barrels.” They said, “Word of warning: having an anesthetic needle stuck in your breast is every bit as excruciating as the actual procedure. Possibly more so.” I said, “Give me the anesthetic anyway, I’ll take my chances.” I was trying to be brave, you see. Which was pointless. Let us draw a veil over the fine-needle biopsy.

Next they left me alone in a cubicle for a while. When they came back, they said, “Okay, the fine-needle biopsy was inconclusive”—i.e. complete waste of time, sorry for the fact it was excruciating—“so we’re going to try something now called a vacuum-assisted core biopsy. Have you ever had one of those before?” Let me just say, if I had had one of those before I would have taken my cue to run screaming from the building, but instead I just shook my head meekly and followed them into the torture chamber. “Word of warning,” they said as I climbed up on the rack, clutching my hospital gown around me. “This will sound a little bit like we are going at your breast with an industrial staple gun. Also, it will feel like you’ve been kicked in the chest for no reason by a champion rodeo bucking bull.”

I kid you not.

Well, they didn’t actually say that, but they should have.

Anyways, I got to have three goes on that ride because the first couple of rounds were “inconclusive.”

After they scraped me down off the ceiling, I went back in to see the doctor. She’d obviously decided the best approach was to speak very briskly and firmly about cell reproduction. And I’m just sitting there staring at her because I had literally no fucking idea what she was talking about. So she drew this helpful diagram on her notepad, indicating how nice cells reproduce (neatly) and how my cells were reproducing (lots of random crazy circles piling up on top of each other). Then she says, “I’m sorry to say you have breast cancer.”

I’m like, “Whaaaat??

The fuuucckk??”

Then I’m like, “Aren’t I a little on the young side to have breast cancer?” I guess I hoped this might be what you call mitigating circumstances. I guess I was angling for a reprieve or a reduced sentence or something, but she didn’t even blink.

“I’ve had younger,” she says.

Then she says, “You’ve got an appointment with the surgeon at three o’clock.” And I’m thinking, Wow, this is quick. And then next thing I’m thinking, Wow, this surgeon looks exactly like George Clooney—George Clooney back in his ER days—and also, this surgeon likes to get around in his scrubs a lot because it makes him look even more like George Clooney back in his ER days. And somehow having my surgeon look exactly like a handsome movie actor just made everything worse. Because ordinarily, under normal circumstances, exposing my breasts to a man who looked like George Clooney and having him stare at them intently and then fondle them (sort of—more prodding and kneading, actually), this would be a very pleasurable swoon-worthy experience. But given the fact that he was about to knock me out cold and go at my breast with a carving knife (scalpel, whatever), let me just say it wasn’t. Also, his hands were cold and he made no attempt to warm them. Also, his interpersonal skills were not tremendous. He seemed to think that if he was even one percent charming or warm or sympathetic, women would just completely fall in love with him, so he compensated for his sensational good looks by having zero empathy and being very direct, very clinical, like he didn’t have time for any nonsense. He says, “It’s an aggressive tumor, and we’ve got to get it out.”

No sugarcoating the pill with George Clooney.

He doesn’t believe in it.

Long story short, I have a lumpectomy.

And you know what? It’s not too bad. Hats off to George Clooney. There’s a neat little incision, and my breast still looks pretty much like a breast. Slightly less stuffing maybe, but if I pulled my shoulders back and stuck my chest out, it still looked pretty reasonable. So for the first time since the day I scratched my armpit, I have a flash of hope. I think, Well, maybe I’m going to get out of this relatively unscathed.

Ha.

A week later, I go back to see Mr. Clooney. He says, “The margins weren’t clear; you’ve got mutations around the outside of the specimen.” I’m thinking, Mutations around the outside of the specimen?? Where does he get this language? Could he possibly make me feel any more of a freak? Is there not a better word than mutations (plural), especially used in same sentence as specimen? And then he says to me very calmly, like he’s playing a doctor in a TV show, “We’re going to go back in and take a little bit more.” And at this point, I’m still hopeful that I might emerge from all this with a breast that doesn’t look like it’s been cobbled together by Dr. Frankenstein, so I say, “How much exactly?” And then he gets this odd look on his face like he hopes this will sound reassuring but he knows in advance that it won’t, and he says, “Just the right amount.”

Which was pretty much when I realized that these guys haven’t got a clue, they’re basically just winging it. George Clooney’s plan in a nutshell was this: lop a bit more off and hope for the best. And of course, I’ve got no choice in the matter; I’ve just got to go along with it and hope for the best also.

So I have another operation, and my breast is starting to look a bit wonkitated now, a bit sad and deflated like a beach ball after the dog’s been at it. But I’m trying to be upbeat, because of course being a good cancer patient is all about being positive, and a week later I go back to see George Clooney and get the results. And he says, “Well, I’ve taken twelve cubic centimeters from here right down to behind the nipple, and the margins still aren’t clear. So this is what we have to do. You’ll have chemo now, and at the end of that, you’ll have to have a mastectomy.”

And I’m just going, Fuck.

Mastectomy.

Because that was the one word I absolutely did not want to hear.

Chemo—who cares? Hair grows back, so do eyelashes. Breasts, on the other hand, do not. In casually dropping the m-word the way he did, George Clooney was basically wiping out my femininity, my sexual desirability, my ability to look at myself naked in the mirror, everything. He might just as well have said, “Oh, and by the way, you’ll never have a husband, you’ll never have babies. It’s doubtful whether you’ll even have sex again.” I felt sick. Sick to my guts. I had exactly that sick horrible doomed feeling you get when they push the safety bar down into lock position on the Wild Mouse at Luna Park. That’s the best way I can describe it. That’s exactly how I felt.

Meanwhile, before the chemo and the body-part removal, I had to go off and be a bridesmaid. My BFF Sally was getting married and naturally she turned into a fucking Bridezilla. She was like, “Never mind your cancer, are you still gonna be my fucking bridesmaid?” Seriously, that’s how she talks. So I had to buy the hideous dress, which cost $600; I had to fly to Orange for the kitchen tea, which cost $250; and supposedly she was going to throw in for the shoes, but then she totally backed out of the shoe deal. Plus, all the bridesmaids had to pitch in for the candy-apple KitchenAid so she could sit it on her benchtop and never use it, even though she kept promising to bake me cupcakes. (What is it about breast cancer that makes people think of cupcakes? Oh. Right.) So basically Sally wiped out the small amount I had in my bank account. And I’m about to quit work because teaching is not the kind of job you can do when you’re sick on chemo. That’s when I literally had thoughts of becoming a nun, because I figured, Well, I’m never going to have sex again. If I became a nun, I would at least have somewhere to live. Because I’m seriously thinking, What the fuck am I going to do now?

All the way through chemo, with the hair falling out and the mouth ulcers and the night sweats, I’m still thinking there has to be a way I can get out of the mastectomy. I was in denial, of course; I see that now. Not meaning to brag, but my breasts had probably been my best feature. Josh had been obsessed with them—ironically, we used to have enormous fights if I wore anything too low-cut. But more than that, the thing that really bothered me was the actual act of them slicing it off—it just seemed so barbaric, so macabre, like some kind of medieval punishment. I remember thinking, Well, what do they do with it? Where does it go? How do they dispose of all these body parts?And then the whole idea of this imitation breast, this thing that only does impersonations. So even when I pick up the phone to book the operation, I’m still thinking, There has to be a way out of this. It can’t be the only way.

Anyway, I make the call and I go back to see George Clooney, and I say to him, “Listen, do you really, really believe I have to do this?” And he got extremely angry with me. He said, “Eleanor, you can bury your head in the sand all you like, but if you don’t do this, you’ll be back here in two years, you’ll have lymph nodes involved, you’ll have chemo again, and it’ll be everywhere.” He said, “It’ll be fun and games for two years, then you’ll be back here.”

Fun and games for two years. So I had the mastectomy.

I was at work scratching my armpit. I was literally at my desk scratching my pit and I felt it and I freaked out and I didn’t tell a soul and normally I’m the kind of person to blurt out everything. So I guess I panicked from the word go.

I had the mammogram first. I had several mammograms because they couldn’t get to it—it was in a really awkward spot. Also, apparently I was not relaxed enough. My not being relaxed enough while they flattened my breast like a hamburger patty and blasted it with radiation was causing them problems. They kept hauling out interesting new attachments for the mammogram machine, like it was some kind of fancy-arse Mixmaster. They were asking me questions like “Are you on the pill? Have you missed any pills?” And I was on the pill, but I’d been really slack about it because I’d broken up with Josh and I wasn’t seeing anyone. But this woman kept insisting I be precise. “What do you mean, you missed a day? How many days did you actually miss? Could you be pregnant?” And she was sweating, there were literally beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead, so I knew.

They did a fine-needle biopsy next. They said, “Anesthetic or no anesthetic?” I said, “Give me the anesthetic, both barrels.” They said, “Word of warning: having an anesthetic needle stuck in your breast is every bit as excruciating as the actual procedure. Possibly more so.” I said, “Give me the anesthetic anyway, I’ll take my chances.” I was trying to be brave, you see. Which was pointless. Let us draw a veil over the fine-needle biopsy.

Next they left me alone in a cubicle for a while. When they came back, they said, “Okay, the fine-needle biopsy was inconclusive”—i.e. complete waste of time, sorry for the fact it was excruciating—“so we’re going to try something now called a vacuum-assisted core biopsy. Have you ever had one of those before?” Let me just say, if I had had one of those before I would have taken my cue to run screaming from the building, but instead I just shook my head meekly and followed them into the torture chamber. “Word of warning,” they said as I climbed up on the rack, clutching my hospital gown around me. “This will sound a little bit like we are going at your breast with an industrial staple gun. Also, it will feel like you’ve been kicked in the chest for no reason by a champion rodeo bucking bull.”

I kid you not.

Well, they didn’t actually say that, but they should have.

Anyways, I got to have three goes on that ride because the first couple of rounds were “inconclusive.”

After they scraped me down off the ceiling, I went back in to see the doctor. She’d obviously decided the best approach was to speak very briskly and firmly about cell reproduction. And I’m just sitting there staring at her because I had literally no fucking idea what she was talking about. So she drew this helpful diagram on her notepad, indicating how nice cells reproduce (neatly) and how my cells were reproducing (lots of random crazy circles piling up on top of each other). Then she says, “I’m sorry to say you have breast cancer.”

I’m like, “Whaaaat??

The fuuucckk??”

Then I’m like, “Aren’t I a little on the young side to have breast cancer?” I guess I hoped this might be what you call mitigating circumstances. I guess I was angling for a reprieve or a reduced sentence or something, but she didn’t even blink.

“I’ve had younger,” she says.

Then she says, “You’ve got an appointment with the surgeon at three o’clock.” And I’m thinking, Wow, this is quick. And then next thing I’m thinking, Wow, this surgeon looks exactly like George Clooney—George Clooney back in his ER days—and also, this surgeon likes to get around in his scrubs a lot because it makes him look even more like George Clooney back in his ER days. And somehow having my surgeon look exactly like a handsome movie actor just made everything worse. Because ordinarily, under normal circumstances, exposing my breasts to a man who looked like George Clooney and having him stare at them intently and then fondle them (sort of—more prodding and kneading, actually), this would be a very pleasurable swoon-worthy experience. But given the fact that he was about to knock me out cold and go at my breast with a carving knife (scalpel, whatever), let me just say it wasn’t. Also, his hands were cold and he made no attempt to warm them. Also, his interpersonal skills were not tremendous. He seemed to think that if he was even one percent charming or warm or sympathetic, women would just completely fall in love with him, so he compensated for his sensational good looks by having zero empathy and being very direct, very clinical, like he didn’t have time for any nonsense. He says, “It’s an aggressive tumor, and we’ve got to get it out.”

No sugarcoating the pill with George Clooney.

He doesn’t believe in it.

Long story short, I have a lumpectomy.

And you know what? It’s not too bad. Hats off to George Clooney. There’s a neat little incision, and my breast still looks pretty much like a breast. Slightly less stuffing maybe, but if I pulled my shoulders back and stuck my chest out, it still looked pretty reasonable. So for the first time since the day I scratched my armpit, I have a flash of hope. I think, Well, maybe I’m going to get out of this relatively unscathed.

Ha.

A week later, I go back to see Mr. Clooney. He says, “The margins weren’t clear; you’ve got mutations around the outside of the specimen.” I’m thinking, Mutations around the outside of the specimen?? Where does he get this language? Could he possibly make me feel any more of a freak? Is there not a better word than mutations (plural), especially used in same sentence as specimen? And then he says to me very calmly, like he’s playing a doctor in a TV show, “We’re going to go back in and take a little bit more.” And at this point, I’m still hopeful that I might emerge from all this with a breast that doesn’t look like it’s been cobbled together by Dr. Frankenstein, so I say, “How much exactly?” And then he gets this odd look on his face like he hopes this will sound reassuring but he knows in advance that it won’t, and he says, “Just the right amount.”

Which was pretty much when I realized that these guys haven’t got a clue, they’re basically just winging it. George Clooney’s plan in a nutshell was this: lop a bit more off and hope for the best. And of course, I’ve got no choice in the matter; I’ve just got to go along with it and hope for the best also.

So I have another operation, and my breast is starting to look a bit wonkitated now, a bit sad and deflated like a beach ball after the dog’s been at it. But I’m trying to be upbeat, because of course being a good cancer patient is all about being positive, and a week later I go back to see George Clooney and get the results. And he says, “Well, I’ve taken twelve cubic centimeters from here right down to behind the nipple, and the margins still aren’t clear. So this is what we have to do. You’ll have chemo now, and at the end of that, you’ll have to have a mastectomy.”

And I’m just going, Fuck.

Mastectomy.

Because that was the one word I absolutely did not want to hear.

Chemo—who cares? Hair grows back, so do eyelashes. Breasts, on the other hand, do not. In casually dropping the m-word the way he did, George Clooney was basically wiping out my femininity, my sexual desirability, my ability to look at myself naked in the mirror, everything. He might just as well have said, “Oh, and by the way, you’ll never have a husband, you’ll never have babies. It’s doubtful whether you’ll even have sex again.” I felt sick. Sick to my guts. I had exactly that sick horrible doomed feeling you get when they push the safety bar down into lock position on the Wild Mouse at Luna Park. That’s the best way I can describe it. That’s exactly how I felt.

Meanwhile, before the chemo and the body-part removal, I had to go off and be a bridesmaid. My BFF Sally was getting married and naturally she turned into a fucking Bridezilla. She was like, “Never mind your cancer, are you still gonna be my fucking bridesmaid?” Seriously, that’s how she talks. So I had to buy the hideous dress, which cost $600; I had to fly to Orange for the kitchen tea, which cost $250; and supposedly she was going to throw in for the shoes, but then she totally backed out of the shoe deal. Plus, all the bridesmaids had to pitch in for the candy-apple KitchenAid so she could sit it on her benchtop and never use it, even though she kept promising to bake me cupcakes. (What is it about breast cancer that makes people think of cupcakes? Oh. Right.) So basically Sally wiped out the small amount I had in my bank account. And I’m about to quit work because teaching is not the kind of job you can do when you’re sick on chemo. That’s when I literally had thoughts of becoming a nun, because I figured, Well, I’m never going to have sex again. If I became a nun, I would at least have somewhere to live. Because I’m seriously thinking, What the fuck am I going to do now?

All the way through chemo, with the hair falling out and the mouth ulcers and the night sweats, I’m still thinking there has to be a way I can get out of the mastectomy. I was in denial, of course; I see that now. Not meaning to brag, but my breasts had probably been my best feature. Josh had been obsessed with them—ironically, we used to have enormous fights if I wore anything too low-cut. But more than that, the thing that really bothered me was the actual act of them slicing it off—it just seemed so barbaric, so macabre, like some kind of medieval punishment. I remember thinking, Well, what do they do with it? Where does it go? How do they dispose of all these body parts?And then the whole idea of this imitation breast, this thing that only does impersonations. So even when I pick up the phone to book the operation, I’m still thinking, There has to be a way out of this. It can’t be the only way.

Anyway, I make the call and I go back to see George Clooney, and I say to him, “Listen, do you really, really believe I have to do this?” And he got extremely angry with me. He said, “Eleanor, you can bury your head in the sand all you like, but if you don’t do this, you’ll be back here in two years, you’ll have lymph nodes involved, you’ll have chemo again, and it’ll be everywhere.” He said, “It’ll be fun and games for two years, then you’ll be back here.”